My recent teaching trip to Alaska was amazing! If you’ve never experienced full daylight in the middle of the night, I can tell you it sort of messes with your mind, LOL! I flew into Anchorage and landed at about 10:30 PM local time. My body was tired after a long day of travel that started at about 6 AM, but my mind kept saying, “you can’t be tired – it’s still bright outside!”
It was about an hour drive to Palmer, which is where I was staying for my visit with the Valley Quilter’s Guild. It’s surrounded by mountains, with incredible views of Pioneer Peak. To give a better perspective, the 2 pictures below were taken on the same day at 9 AM and 9 PM. Can you tell which is which??
There are absolutely no filters applied to the images above. Isn’t it breathtaking??
In addition to the scenery, the quilters I taught were fabulous, too! I started off the first evening with my signature lecture, “How Do I Quilt It?” based on my book of the same name. It was a full house, and they really made me feel welcome!
I always bring lots of quilts with my to illustrate my techniques and it’s fun to show how the same quilting motifs can be applied to different quilt designs. I include lots of photos of closeup details in my presentations and allow students to get up close and personal with my quilts throughout the weekend.
My lecture/trunk show was followed by 2 full days of domestic machine quilting. I teach students how to ease into machine quilting with quick and easy walking foot designs that anyone can do. Then the next day I teach them my favorite free-motion techniques and it’s fabulous to see how much progress they can make in such a short amount of time!
Take a look below at this short video showing some of their work. I think they did an amazing job – don’t you?? (Click the image below to start playing.)
I also got to sample some of the local cuisine. Everyone recommended that I try the reindeer sausage and it did not disappoint!!
On the way back to the airport we spotted a couple of live moose by the side of the road. It was the first time I’ve seen these majestic creatures in the wild, but it happened so quickly I didn’t even think to snap a pic. Fortunately, the airport had a stuffed version on display to greet visitors, LOL!!
All in all it was a great way to kick start my quilty summer, and I’d definitely go back there again!
If you’d like to learn more about what & where I teach, check out the links below for my books, patterns and teaching schedule.
Christa Quilts 
Many years ago… 1991 to be exact, I went to Alaska for the second time. I had a friend living in Nome so that is where I started my trip. I was there on June 21 and there was much celebrating with midnight baseball game to end the day. I then flew back to Anchorage and rented a car and traveled around the state. What a fun trip!
What a great trip! My hubby would like to go to Alaska. I taught a class last week at my church but none of the ladies have ever sewn before 😦 So it was a bit challenging. We had fun and hopefully they will learn how to put the pedal to the metal before we attempt quilting 🙂